25 Jun Loving Scrivener
I’ve written briefly about the writing program Scrivener before. Designed by the Cornwall-based software company, Literature and Latte, it is specificially for long writing projects.
Once only available for Mac, it now works with Windows. Doubtless, it has made the practical side of writing my current book much easier.
10 Reasons Why I Love Scrivener
- You can have your entire book, research drafts & re-drafts all in ONE project, making it simpler when working with lots of text.
- All the titles of your documents are visible at any one time (although not open). So much better than clunky ol’ Microsoft Word where you have to shuffle back and forth between folders.
- The virtual corkboard is fantastic for storyboarding your project. You can look at each scene or chapter as if it were an index card. You can label them, give them colours, mark them as Draft or Final… whatever you want. This provides an instant overview of what you are writing.
- It’s designed to make planning and outlining your writing project more straightforward.
- The split screen option allows you to be looking at a photo or a mindmap or a video and write about it at the same time. You can also have the virtual corkboard open as you write an individual scene, allowing you to see the overview of your story simultaneously as the close-up.
- You can fade out the background screen when writing to reduce distraction.
- It has a function called Edit Srivenings. This allows you to compile a group of scenes together in one instant document – rather than cutting and pasting. You can then see the final word count.
- If you are editing a large chunk, Edit Srivenings is also a quick way to restructure smaller sections. I use it all the time now I’m in the editing phase of the book.
- The program is straightforward to use – and I’m not technosavvy. If you do get stuck a wonderful guy called Keith will answer your queries. (You know he’s a real person because there’s a photo of him as a boy dressed in a tank-top!)
- It has templates for all sorts of writing projects, from a novel to a screenplay.
It costs $50 and you can trial it free for 30 days.
For those who want to become pros, there is now a mini Scrivener self-help industry. Best-selling crime author David Hewson (who’s reworked the TV series The Killing into a novel) has an e-book Writing a Novel With Srivener. Scrivener for Dummies is about to be published and the author, Gwen Hernandez, also offers online classes… I reckon I should sign up for my next book.
Would love to know if any of you have used it…
P.S I haven’t been commissioned by Scrivener to write this post 🙂